Twenty + Change: EHA

The pandemic brought elders’ housing into sharp focus for many of us for the first time. But Vancouver-based architect Eitaro Hirota had long been working on reshaping the elder-care landscape in British Columbia, one project at a time. By considering the full scope of changing spatial needs that people may have as they age, the practice aims to incrementally renovate and futureproof both buildings and cities.

Hirota explains that as an early-career architect, he was drawn to the complexities of elder care after seeing the institutional options available for his ill father. He gradually retrofitted a space in his own house to serve as a “makeshift care home.” In the decade since, Hirota has been on an active learning journey, honing his skills in designing improved seniors’ care facilities, researching how architecture can better serve aging populations, and seeking precedents for creating community resiliency in the face of changing demographics.

One of EHA’s earliest projects is the Homecoming Memory Village, a dementia village designed for a community just outside of Richmond, Virginia. Following the principles of this relatively new architectural type, the project is a microcosm of a city, giving its residents independence and the ability to participate in everyday life within its boundaries. Creating regular access to the everyday—through creating destinations that the residents can step outside and go to—promotes independence and purpose, as well as natural social interactions with neighbours. This has been a central tenet of EHA’s elder-care projects.

Other seniors’ housing projects, such as Seton Villa and Rosewood, blur the lines between carer and cared-for, creating a co-living environment designed to integrate elders’ care to housing and the everyday life within the city. The boundaries of these institutional spaces are softened to bring in a broader public, while giving residents freedom of movement and allowing them to be visibly active members of their communities.

EHA’s practice also extends to projects that allow seniors to age in place, such as the Rinkyo Laneway House. Hirota explains that the word “rinkyo” means “living next door” in Japanese, and that the project has allowed EHA’s client to age nearly in place. EHA was initially approached to create an accessory dwelling unit for the clients’ daughter and young family to move into, and to retrofit the main house to allow the client to age in place: Hirota instead proposed the opposite arrangement.

EHA created an accessible ADU for the elderly client, and made space for the client’s daughter and her young family to move into the main house. The result is multi-generational housing that addresses changing cognitive and physical needs, while also providing familial support and a sense of independence for both households.

Hirota notes that working on projects that allow for aging in place (or nearly in place), as well as simultaneously building larger-scale assisted-living facilities, though seemingly opposing strategies, are both fundamental to expanding the number of options available to people as they age. Hirota says that part of the reason that we are in the current crisis in elder care is that “aging has long been invisible and individual in Canada.” He sees architecture as having the ability to “make aging visible.” In doing so, architecture can normalize aging, and allow people to envision their elders—and themselves—in supportive environments that integrate naturally into their communities and everyday lives.

This profile is part of our October 2024 feature story, Twenty + Change: New Perspectives. 

As appeared in the October 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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